Days Before His Nomination as Whig Nominee for the 1844 Presidential Election, Henry Clay Remembers William Henry Harrison as “my lamented friend the late President of the United States”

An unpublished letter to William Henry Harrison’s cousin, acquired directly from the Harrison descendants

In 1840, Clay was a candidate for the Whig nomination, but he was defeated at the party convention by supporters of war hero William Henry Harrison. Harrison was chosen because his war record was attractive, and he was seen as more likely to win than Clay, who had been nominated and lost twice before.  Harrison became, as a result, the first “packaged” presidential candidate, depicted not as a descendant of a prominent and wealthy family, but as a simple soul from the backwoods who had grown up in a log cabin. To pull in Southern Democrats, the Whigs nominated John Tyler of Virginia for vice president, allowing the Whigs to promote Harrison’s victories as Indian fighter with the famous slogan “Tippicanoe and Tyler Too”. Clay was not pleased; Harrison had after all been an elector for Clay in his 1832 run.

The relationship was complex. Harrison and Clay were allies, but rivals for political power.  Although offered a position in the Harrison cabinet, Clay declined.  He jockeyed for power within nonetheless, and bided his time.  The once-cordial relationship between the men had soured toward the end. But Harrison’s administration was the shortest lived in American history, as he died after but one month in office.

Clay was determined to run again for office in 1844 to defeat John Tyler – this all amidst the crisis over the annexation of Texas and its implications for the spread of slavery.

Southern Whigs feared that the acquisition of Texas’ fertile lands would produce a huge market for slave labor, inflating the price of slaves and deflating land values in their home states. Northern Whigs feared that Texas statehood would initiate the opening of a vast “Empire for Slavery”.

Two weeks before the Whig convention in Baltimore, and now candidate for the Whig nomination, Clay issued a document known as the Raleigh Letter (April 17, 1844) presenting his views on Texas to his fellow southern Whigs. In it, he flatly denounced the Tyler annexation bill and predicted that its passage would provoke a war with Mexico, whose government had never recognized Texas independence.  Days later, Tyler submitted his annexation plan to the Senate and a firestorm ignited.

Two days later, at the height of his campaign for the Whig nomination, Clay wrote to one of the Harrison family descendants, describing his campaign as a journey, and remembering his late colleague, William Henry Harrison.  He did so in a letter to Henry Harrison, at the Harrison family home of Berkeley, VA. Henry was a cousin to William Henry.

Autograph letter signed, Petersburg, April 19, 1844, to Henry Harrison. “My dear sir, I received your favor and should be most happy to be able to accept your kind and hospitable invitiation to visit Berkeley, the birthplace of my lamented friend the late President of the United States; but I regret that it is not in my power to have that satisfaction. One of the privations, incident to my present journey, is that I cannot have the gratification of individual intercourse and of visiting the private residences of my friends.  In no incidence do I regret this more than that I cannot stop at Berkeley and avail myself of the tender of your kind hospitality; but I can tender, as I now do, my grateful thanks for your offer of it. I am with highest respect, your friend and obt servant, H. Clay.”

Effectively the leader of the Whig Party, he would be selected as the Whig presidential nominee at the party’s convention in Baltimore, Maryland on May 1, 1844, just 10 days after this letter.

We acquired this letter directly from the Harrison descendants; it is unpublished, and has never before been offered for sale.

This is an interesting and very uncommon characterization of Harrison by Clay, the first we can recall having.